Excalibur a5-6 Read online

  Khufu had seen swarms of locusts so thick they made day into night passing overhead. When they alighted in a field, they stripped it bare within minutes. He tried to imagine a Swarm that could be a threat to the Gods but could not conceive of it. The vision continued speaking, the sound almost like that of a bird, Khufu thought.

  “The capstone — what it calls the Master Guardian — will stop the Ancient Enemy,” Asim finally said as the vision ceased speaking. “Excalibur controls the power to the Guardian. While the sword is inside the sheath the Master Guardian cannot work. You have freed it and thus the Master Guardian has power. The Master Guardian can now take action against the Ancient Enemy.”

  Khufu turned to the priest. “How will this Master Guardian do this? What Ancient Enemy?”

  Asim was looking up. He pointed at the display on the roof of the cavern that showed the sky above the pyramid. “That enemy, my lord.”

  Khufu looked up and blinked. There was a dark spot high in the sky, rapidly growing larger. As it descended it began to take shape and Khufu felt his stomach knot and twist with fear. It was a large black flying spider — that was the only thing he could think. Eight legs, spread wide around a central, round body. And large — how big he had no idea, but its shadow was now covering the top of the pyramid.

  “How will the Guardian fight this?” Khufu whispered.

  “You have given it power by removing Excalibur from the sheath,” Asim repeated. “Watch the power of the Gods, my lord.”

  Khufu wanted to strangle the priest. He could not tear his eyes from the rapidly approaching monster. Suddenly a golden orb of power streaked upward from the Master Guardian toward the object and hit it. The spider jerked sideways. Khufu kept his eyes on it and a second golden orb raced into the sky and struck the enemy. Bright red flames burst out of the side of the flying spider and it jerked once more, now going upward, trying to escape.

  A third golden orb hit it and enveloped the entire object. It was still going higher and higher, edging toward the west. Khufu staggered back as there was a blinding explosion. When he looked up, the sky was clear.

  The golden glow inside the chamber decreased and Khufu almost collapsed, feeling drained. The Pharaoh started as the image began speaking again.

  “We are safe for now,” Asim translated. “But”—he paused as he translated, eye closed—“it is not safe.”

  “What isn’t safe?” Khufu demanded.

  “The Great Pyramid. The Master Guardian. The pyramid did not work as intended. It summoned the Ancient Enemy and not the Gods of old. If the Ancient Enemy came once, it can come again. What drew it here must be destroyed.”

  The figure chimed on for a minute and Asim remained silent, until the figure stopped speaking, coalesced into a thin red line, then disappeared.

  Asim opened his eye. “I have been told what is to be done. Put the blade back in the sheath, my Pharaoh.”

  Khufu slid the blade into the scabbard.

  “Come, my lord.” Asim was hobbling toward the tunnel. “There is much to do.” So stunned was the Pharaoh by the recent events that he didn’t even question being ordered about by the priest. He simply followed him out of the chamber, the covered sword in his hands.

  * * *

  Wreckage from the scout ship tumbled toward the empty desert west of Giza. Among the debris was a black pod, approximately fifteen feet across, the metal surface unmarred by the explosion. As the pod approached the surface of the planet, its terminal velocity began to slow as some internal mechanism interacted with the planet’s electromagnetic field. Still, it was moving so fast the outer surface gave off heat, glowing in the sky like a falling star. Despite slowing, the pod hit a dune with enough velocity to plow deep into the sand. It was completely covered when the pod came to rest, submerged twenty feet in the desert.

  An hour after the crash, a camel rider approached. A Libyan who was heading toward Cairo to do some trading, he’d seen the falling star from his caravan ten miles to the south. Leaving his son in charge, he’d ridden in the direction the object had fallen, curiosity pulling him across the sand.

  He’d already passed places where it was obvious objects from the sky had impacted in the desert, but whatever had hit, they were deeply buried under the sand. He approached a sixty-foot-high sand dune and noted the disturbed surface near the top indicating another impact. The Libyan halted his camel at the base of the dune and dismounted. His robe flapped in a stiff breeze and all but his eyes was covered with cloth wrapped around his head.

  The Libyan paused, his head swinging back and forth as he looked about. He had the sense of being followed, but his eyes detected no sign of another person. He’d had the feeling for a while, but there was no evidence to support the instinct.

  He cocked his head as he heard a sound. A grinding noise. Then nothing but the wind for several moments. He took several steps closer to the dune where the sound had seemed to come from. Then he heard something different. Almost a slithering sound. He took half a step back, then paused. There was something inside the dune. Of that there was no doubt in his mind. He looked left and right but there was no movement. He could feel the heat of the sun on his shoulders but a cold chill passed through his body. The Libyan drew a curved sword from his belt. The noise was getting louder.

  Mustering his courage, the Libyan took several steps forward until he was at the base of the dune. The sound was very close now. The Libyan jabbed the point of his sword into the dune, the blade easily spearing the sand. He did it again and then again.

  He pulled the blade back and cocked his head. Nothing.

  The tentacles came out of the sand underneath his feet, wrapping around his legs. He was pulled under, desperately trying to slash and stab with his sword at whatever was below him. His scream was cut off as he disappeared under the sand. His camel bolted off into the desert, desperate to get away.

  Then all was still.

  A quarter mile away, on the far side of a dune, two dark eyes had watched the encounter. The possessor of the eyes waited a few moments, staring at the spot where the Libyan had disappeared, then he slowly slid down the side of the dune to his waiting camel. He headed back the way he had come, toward Giza. The sun glinted off a large ring set on the man’s right hand, highlighting the eye symbol etched on its surface. The hand the ring was on held the camel’s halter, but it was shaking so badly from fright, that he had to let go and allow the camel to make its own way home.

  * * *

  It was the middle of the night and by order of the great Pharaoh Khufu no one was allowed outdoors in sight of the Giza Plateau except himself and his high priest Asim. Given the strange apparition the previous day of the flying “spider,” no citizens tried to resist the command. Khufu and Asim stood on the roof of the temple at the base of the pyramid. The night sky was clear. The red capstone no longer glowed as if lit from within as Khufu had Excalibur inside the scabbard now strapped to his own sword belt.

  Khufu could still see in his mind’s eye the black spider that had come down from the sky. He did not understand what it was, but there was no doubt in him that it was a danger. Whatever entity controlled such a flying creature and was capable of fighting the Gods was indeed something to be feared.

  “What are we waiting for?”

  “When the sword is in the sheath, the”—Asim searched for the right words—“Chariots of the Gods cannot approach the capstone. You must take the blade out once more.”

  Khufu drew the weapon. He watched as the capstone glowed once more. Asim continued. “Since you have removed the sword, the capstone can be approached.”

  “By who? What Chariot of the Gods?”

  “There, lord.” Asim was pointing to the north.

  Something was approaching through the sky. Khufu started, and then realized it wasn’t another air-spider. This object was shaped like an inverted dish and golden, reminding him of the glow that had surrounded him in the chamber far below during the day.

  “The C
hariot of the Gods,” Asim whispered.

  The object passed by overhead and hovered above the very top of the pyramid, five hundred feet above their heads. A glow extended down from the disk and surrounded the red Master Guardian. The Guardian was twenty feet high at the base and had been brought out of the Earth below by Asim and other priests, following instructions as handed down through the ages. It had been laboriously dragged to the top just the previous week to complete the pyramid by being dragged up the scaffolding that had been wrapped around the edifice. Although larger than blocks used in the structure, Khufu knew it was lighter because of the number of men needed to pull it, indicating that it was not solid. No one knew what it was made of, as the red surface had seemed to shimmer, and men feared to touch it.

  Khufu started as the Master Guardian separated from the pyramid, lifting into the air as if by magic. The golden object, with the Guardian in tow, began withdrawing in the direction it had come from, to the north. Khufu watched until it disappeared into the night sky, then he turned to Asim.

  “Where does it go?”

  “To a secure place, my lord. Separate from the key.” “Why separate the two?”

  “The Master Guardian will be more secure if the key is not with it.” Asim absently rubbed his empty eye socket. “The sword you hold was once wielded by the greatest of the Gods. With it he controlled the Master Guardian, and in turn his entire domain.”

  Khufu looked at the smooth blade. He had never seen such fine metal. “It is a great weapon, then.”

  “It is,” Asim said. “Especially as it controls the power for the Master Guardian. It allows whoever has the sword to be very powerful.” “And now?”

  “Have your troops scoured the desert for the spider creature, my lord?”

  “They have found no sign of the sky monster, but have apprehended all the people they found to the west.”

  Asim nodded. “The prisoners must be part of what we do in the morning.” “And?” Khufu pressed.

  “My lord, tomorrow we must complete the undoing of what our people have worked so hard to do over the past twenty years.” He pointed. “The facing of the pyramid must be removed.” “Why?”

  “It sent out a signal, my lord, but it did not bring the Gods as hoped, but their enemy.”

  Khufu knew the pyramid could be seen far away, and he imagined that if one could be in the sky as the spider creature had been, it could be seen at a great distance indeed. He did not wish for a repeat of that. “It will be done.”

  * * *

  Hidden in the dark shadows of a refuse pile of cracked stone blocks the watcher from the desert had observed the same thing as Khufu and Asim. He’d noted the direction the golden disk flew off in, Master Guardian with it. Despite the darkness of his hide, he wrote all that he had seen down on a piece of reed parchment. As his hand moved, a large ring with an eye symbol reflected the scant starlight.

  Then, keeping to ground he knew well, he made his way off the Giza Plateau and to a small hut near the Nile. Inside, he checked the writing, making sure it reported accurately what he had seen, then rolled it and slid it into a tube. He poured wax from a candle on the end and then used the ring to seal it with an imprint — the imprint had the same design as that on the medallion worn around Asim’s neck.

  He slid the tube inside his robes and sat down cross-legged on the sand floor, waiting for the sun to rise. He’d managed to escape the Pharaoh’s troops in the desert, sticking to the hidden ways. He’d noted that the members of the Libyan caravan had been brought to the plateau in chains, the man he’d seen disappear under the sand among them.

  Tomorrow would be a most interesting day, he mused.

  * * *

  When dawn came, it was assembly-line murder.

  The great Pharaoh Khufu, son of King Sneferu and Queen Hetpeheres, ruler of the Middle Kingdom, watched, his face impassive, as rivers of blood flowed down the smooth limestone facing of the Great Pyramid.

  He was at the flat top where the Master Guardian had been, over 480 feet above the Giza Plateau, seated in a throne made of gold. Four sacrificial tables were spread out in the small space in front of him, manned by priests of the Cult of Isis.

  Asim was working swiftly as there were many thousands of throats to be cut. A long line of stoop-shouldered men stood on the wooden scaffolding that led to the level platform at the top of the pyramid where Asim wielded Excalibur, the sword of the Gods, moving from table to table, sliding the razor-sharp blade across throats. Soldiers ensured that the line kept moving. Every worker who had spent even one minute inside the pyramid during its construction was in that line. When Asim’s work was done, the only ones to have been inside the pyramid and live would be Khufu and Asim.

  As each worker reached the top, two soldiers would lift him bodily, throw him onto a slab, pinning his shoulders down, and a priest would hold his head back, waiting for Asim to come by and draw Excalibur across the man’s throat while quickly muttering the necessary prayer. Blood would spurt out of his carotid arteries, be caught by the lip of the slab, and be channeled into several holes to reed pipes at the bottom, which directed it to the edge of the platform and dispersed it onto the side of the pyramid. Three sides were drenched red and the reed pipes had just been redirected to the fourth side. As spectacular as the white limestone facing had been when pure, in an obscene way, the glistening red covering of blood made it even more awe-inspiring.

  Dulled by years of labor, surrounded by troops, and conditioned to obey their Pharaoh and Gods without question, the men stood in line with little protest. Occasionally one would try to bolt, to be cut down by the guards immediately and the body hauled to the top.

  Not only were priests and workers among the condemned, but so were all those who had been caught in the desert to the west the previous day. The Libyan who had approached the sand dune was dragged up with chains around his ankles and thrown onto an altar. He had his head up, looking around as if noting all. When his eyes fell upon Excalibur in Asim’s hands, his calm demeanor suddenly changed and he struggled in the guards’ grip. As Asim drew the sword of the Gods across the man’s neck, the body convulsed, sitting straight up despite the blood pouring from the sliced arteries in his neck. Asim stepped back in shock, Excalibur held up defensively. The two soldiers who’d brought the Libyan to the altar grabbed his shoulders.

  The Libyan snatched the soldiers’ necks and smashed their heads together, killing them. Asim used the opportunity to jab forward with the sword, the blade punching into the Libyan’s stomach. An unearthly scream roared out of the man’s wide-open mouth. Khufu, behind a line of his imperial guards, was less than ten feet away, watching the bizarre spectacle. The Pharaoh gasped in horror as Asim struck once more before the Libyan’s body was ripped apart from the inside. The tip of a tentacle punched out of the man’s skin from his chest.

  The tentacle was gray and tipped with three digits that bent and twisted as they grasped for a target. The body of the Libyan was bent in an extremely unnatural manner, as if the spine had been turned into a loose string. Asim swung the sword, severing the end of the tentacle. The end that fell to the stone shriveled as if baked, while the other slid back into the body. Then the priest stepped back, Excalibur at the ready.

  “What was that?” Khufu demanded.

  Asim jabbed the sword several more times into the body, but there was no movement. “Burn the body,” Asim ordered several of the Imperial guard. “Scatter the ashes.”

  As they gingerly picked up the Libyan’s body, Asim walked over to the Pharaoh, sweat staining his robes. “The Ancient Enemy, my lord. It came out of what we saw yesterday.”

  Khufu could only shake his head, the events of the past twenty-four hours threatening to overwhelm his sanity. “What kind of enemy is this?”

  “It is the enemy of the Gods and our enemy.” “How did it get in that man?”

  “I do not know, my lord. I was told to watch for this by the apparition yesterday.”

  �
�How did it survive? We saw the sky thing destroyed.”

  “I do not know that either, my lord, but the apparition warned me it could. And it told me that the sword would kill it.”

  Khufu looked at the blade in Asim’s hands. “That is indeed very powerful.”

  “It was designed so that whoever wielded it could rule supreme,” Asim said.

  Khufu understood that concept of consolidating power and ruling supreme. A thing that one person could carry and that held such power held both great opportunity and great danger.

  Asim signaled for the soldiers to continue to bring prisoners forward and went back to his grim task. By the time the last worker was dead and the body unceremoniously tossed over the side to be burned, all four sides of the Great Pyramid were stained red. There was no repeat of what had happened with the Libyan.

  Over five thousand had died in four hours. Asim came back to Khufu, his arm trembling with exhaustion. He handed the sword to Khufu, who slid the bloodstained blade into the scabbard.

  “I have done as the Gods ordered me,” Asim said. “Now you must have your men finish what must be done to the pyramid.”

  Khufu gave the orders. Soldiers hammered spikes into joints all along the edge of the platform, between the white limestone blocks on the facing and the more coarse building stones underneath. What had been so carefully placed and fitted onto the pyramid, was ripped off, the stone tumbling down to the ground, revealing the unfinished stone underneath.

  The destruction of the facing begun, Khufu took his leave before the ramp was destroyed, Asim close at his side. When they reached the ground, they went to the Great Sphinx. The Horus statue between the paws had been removed, replaced by a stone one. The original had been taken by Asim and his priests into the Roads of Rostau in the early morning, to what destination, only the high priest knew. The men who had helped drag it underground were among those killed. Khufu and Asim stood between the massive stone paws, out of earshot of anyone else.